Need your experience with HE an ASD child

[Liliuk]

Hello, My DS is 5 with ASD. I am considering HE because I think he trying trying to cope so much at school that he doesn't learn anything. I have considered it for the last year, so not really new thought, and am following ABA programme. He has quite a complex statement, so I am worried LA will be difficult about it. I'd be gratefull if you could say what have been your experiences? Thanks!

[ommmward]

the statement is there just so that the LA can do their best to meet his needs. If you relieve them of the responsibility of trying to educate him, and do it yourself, then the statement becomes irrelevant. You might want to keep it up to date in case you want to put him in school again later, but otherwise meh it can just lapse. I promise they won't mind not having to find money for all the support he currently needs!

Get yourself onto the HE-special needs support email list here

No personal experience here - my children haven't been to school - but there are loads and loads of parents of children with ASD who give up on fighting the system in the end, and just get on with meeting their children's needs themselves. There's a lovely book called "paths are made by walking: home educating our autistic spectrum children" which will be an eye opener for you :)

[FionaJNicholson]

Hi

You can deregister your child from school irrespective of whether or not he has a statement. There's an added level of bureaucracy though if the child is a registered pupil at a special school. There are around a 1,000 home educated children with a statement of SEN across the country and around 1 in 5 of those are on the autistic spectrum.

[Liliuk]

Thanks for your response and for the link to HE-Special need list! I have read this book which is great. All of my worries are to do with the LA not accepting it (quite heavy history between them and me) rather than the HE itself.
Thank you for taking the time to respond :-)

[ShoshanaBlue]

I am home educating my little girl with autism - not particularly through choice though - there are just no facilities in our LA until the specialist autism school is built next year. We tried school twice (first time mainstream, second time was an autistic unit in a mainstream) and it was a complete disaster for my daughter every single time.

If given a choice, I think I would do school part-time because I seriously need a break. I know school isn't meant to be respite, but unless your child has a life-threatening disease, you don't get respite....and I'm not sure any respite place would take my child anyway. Unfortunately, no school in our authority wants flexi-schooling....

We have a statement, but in our local authority, we do have a proper Elective Home Education Officer rather than an EWO and who does totally understand home education and is very supportive, although I understand this is rare.

The negative side for us is that I get no time - have to arrange a babysitter a week in advance just to go shopping....and spend a fortune on food deliveries on stuff I should just be able to get....As a 24 hour carer for a child with a sleep disorder of some sort, I am quite run down.

The positive side is that my child is coping a lot better, I don't have to sit around worrying and waiting for phone calls from school and her learning is a lot more positive because we are out and about in the community. We've met really great families at the local home education group and we can plan our life around our needs.

[Liliuk]

thank you for your message ShoshanaBlue. I understand the respite part, if only they did give us some of that statement money...Also, I used to work when he was going nursery and that was respite (although not supposed to be).
All the best to all.

[ommmward]

SHoshana - do you use melatonin? That can change the lives of a whole family for the better (melatonin underproduction is really common for children on the spectrum)